hello. this is bbc news with clive myrie. we'll be taking a look at tomorrow mornings papers in a moment, first the headlines: heavy snow and ice have been causing disruption across the uk, with hazardous conditions on the roads, and thousands of homes left without power. the environment agency has issued 11 flood warnings, and more than 90 flood alerts in england and wales. the first of a group of critically—ill syrian patients have been evacuated from a rebel—held suburb near damascus. aid groups had urged president assad to allow treatment for dozens of urgent cases, including 7 children with cancer. the family of the briton laura plummer, jailed in egypt for drug offences, says she has already been transferred to a notorious prison. laura plummer‘s lawyer told the bbc that he's planning to apply for her to be moved to another prison with better conditions closer to cairo. prince harry has set out how he views his role as a senior royal. he promises to remain above politics but shine a light on certain issues and causes.

he was speaking as guest editor of radio 4's today programme this morning. and southampton‘s virgil van dijk will become the world's most expensive defender when the january transfer window opens, as liverpool have announced they will be signing him for £75m — more than £20m higher than the current record. hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers will be bringing us tomorrow. with me arejosie cox, business editor at the independent, and tom bergin, business correspondent for reuters. it is not just it is notjust business news, folks, there is a lot of variety so stay

with us. tomorrow's front pages, starting with the i hasjeremy corbyn declaring he's ready to fight an election at any time, and will around in 2022 if the government survives a full term. the times claims the metropolitan police is failing to protect vulnerable children. the financial times reports that companies have made a record amount from floating on stock exchanges, mainly because of deals in the us and china. the daily express runs with a story about people seeing their pension funds whittled away by hidden charges. the telegraph leads with a warning that patients are going blind while waiting for cataract operations. the guardian leads with a story claiming the rise of automation, will adversely affect the poorest in society the most. the mirror claims hospitals made half a million pounds a day, from nhs car parks last year. and finally the mail has a report claiming almost half of local authorities haven't had a bobby on the beat, for the past year. we will start with the ait, jeremy

corbyn tells his ready to fight for an election any time and will work feel 2022. he is getting the message out that he is still out there. theresa may is looking more secure but he is making clear he is still around. and that he will be for potentially is the long haul. what is interesting about this story, the age comes up. is interesting about this story, the age comes up. they are making the point that he is 60 ait —— 60 years of age. he will be fighting fit because of his diet. i do not know, i have not seen age becoming a big issue in british politics... he is a spring chicken compared to the us president. age has become an issue

at times. people have brought it up in the us elections. he says he is fighting fit even for 2022. he's tried to bring some of the attention back on himself which may has been shunning more on theresa may.“ pa rt shunning more on theresa may.“ part of the problem that so much has been discussed about brexit, brexit seems to be the centre of the political conversation and labour's position is a bit unclear. even some labour members would admit that. and that lack of clarity has perhaps meant they are not getting the kind of traction in the polls?” meant they are not getting the kind of traction in the polls? i think thatis of traction in the polls? i think that is definitely the case. jeremy corbyn has been speaking to several papers and one of the things that we re papers and one of the things that were discussing earlier, he is reiterating some of the pledges that got him the support. pledges around healthcare, around housing, for

example. really strong issues that people care about and he wants to use people care about and he wants to use to get through... to refocus of discussion and debate. the brexit angle has been that any issue of an clarity in labour, there is a ground swell among labour voters who say we do not know where you stand on brexit and we demand that what we are supporting you for what you will fight for. this is part of the package to try to re— mobilised his support base. the daily telegraph, some are suggesting that a labour government underjeremy corbyn rather than brexit go through because you can get rid ofjeremy corbyn in four years but the mac is a favour. this is a

once—in—a—lifetime decision. hazeltine is articulating something people have been thinking for a long time, natural tory supporters stop realistically if you go back to the 2015 election. 0ne realistically if you go back to the 2015 election. one of the big risks around a tory victory is they were promising a referendum that might not go the way the business trinity wanted. this is more contentious because he is a figure that the conservative party would expect to a lwa ys conservative party would expect to always be beating the drums for the party. this asks whether politicians should be loyal first to their party 01’ should be loyal first to their party or to the electric and the country asa or to the electric and the country as a whole. —— electorate. it may look like disloyalty to the party but he may say it is serving the

greater good but it is not going down very well. i wonder if ken clarke feels the same way. to see jeremy corbyn in power rather than a brexit. it is a difficult one. the rhetoric we are hearing from heseltine is not surprising. he has been very clear on his opinions of brexit but the draw that comparison directly, that takes the thing to a whole new level and that is what is upsetting some members of the tory party. we will move on to the times, continuing with brexit. david davis sidelined as a civil service takes over the negotiations. they are quoting sources saying that 0liver roberts, the former parliamentary

secretary, has been moved in as a bit of a substitute for davis and that he has been going to these meetings in brussels. july and september he went to significantly more meetings than david davis. he reports to theresa may. this is quite worrying for david davis... because he is of the brexit secretary and if he is not doing anything... not taking part in the negotiations, what is he doing? i not sure... playing golf? i am sure you are not doing that, david. is it surprising considering that david davis has been the face of brexit negotiations so far. his competency and credibility have been questioned and credibility have been questioned and we can all agree that brexit negotiations have not gone as planned even though we have some

progress in the last couple of weeks but nonetheless there was a lot of scrutiny around whether david davis is the right person for the job and whether he is in it for the long run, asjeremy whether he is in it for the long run, as jeremy corbyn whether he is in it for the long run, asjeremy corbyn claims whether he is in it for the long run, as jeremy corbyn claims to whether he is in it for the long run, asjeremy corbyn claims to be. there is no suggestion that theresa may would go any further and get rid of him. she is playing a really difficult balancing act. there is a huge risk for theresa may and also for remainers which is that at the moment he is negotiating, he is a brexiteer, clearly, and the remainers are saying there is the potential for the government to be all to deliver. if it ends up the case that this deal is not going to be as sweet and nice as the brexit campaign said it would be, if their man has been sidelined, brexiteers ca nton man has been sidelined, brexiteers canton around and say we got a bad deal because we were undermined by

remainers. theresa may could end up facing the blame if the reason a deal the country does not like about freedom of movement, and things that people said we would not have to haveif people said we would not have to have if we left the european union. if david davis is sidelined and another brexiteer is not in a powerful position, this could contribute to who owns the failure. the whole point, one assumes, that you appoint david davis, liam fox and boris johnson you appoint david davis, liam fox and borisjohnson because of three of them were brexiteers and if it is a complete failure, it is their fault. sidelining david davis should turn that on its head. absolutely but we have to remember that a lot of her plans back in the day have since proved not to have been the most successful approach so i think

the way brexit negotiations have gone so far has clearly presented additional challenges that perhaps nobody factored in. who is to save what will happen in the next couple of months. indeed. in the mail. bobbies disappearing. 40% of people in this poll say they have not seen an officer on street patrolled in the last year. it is an independent police watchdog poll questioning 4000 people and they say that apparently 44% of not seen bobby on the beat in the last year, last year it was 36%, is they be declined by all the look of things. ——a steady decline. i wonder how we liable it is as an indicator because one thing we have to consider is how many lease officers out there are

plainclothes and on top of that there are other techniques for monitoring, for surveillance, at cameras etc and surely they must play a part as well and finally, i think i do not know how conscious we are police officers and what i would really like to do and find interesting would be if we did this survey in the immediate aftermath of some terrible terrorist attack and i think people are there more conscious of seeing police officers and thinka conscious of seeing police officers and think a lot of people would say, yes, i have noticed police officers around because they are looking out for them. i seem to see a lot of community officers. community bobbies, as they are called. pcs oh. definitely. 0ne bobbies, as they are called. pcs oh. definitely. one of the things we we re definitely. one of the things we were discussing, in canary worth,

where i work, i see as many police armed as an armed. 0ne where i work, i see as many police armed as an armed. one of the interesting thing is is what does the date at tell us? there is a debate about whether there is a benefit about using police in a targeted way, the high spots of crime. if you deployed many more police on the beat, you still would not see them because they would be going to the hot crime spots. going on to the guardian, the poorest fare worse in automated age. it is those jobs that are repetitive that perhaps could be done by a robot or a machine, those in the professions, the workplace areas that are going

to be worst hit were the machine to ta ke to be worst hit were the machine to take over. every few months we tend to get a new report out about the robots. this report says it does not think robots are going to take over jobs, you are not heading for some kind of future where we do not have jobs any more and robots do everything. they are concerned about what the automation of certain industries will lead to wealth inequality and to that balance. they are saying that actually the jobs that pay the lowest wages are most susceptible to automation and as a result of that, that will force more people to retrain, to relocate, to shift their focus to high your earning professions and that will create an imbalance. they are urging the government to do more around

educating people, educating employers around the risks of automation and the changing face of the workforce. are we on top of this enough? are we ready for this great new world? is the society ready to meet the challenge? over the past 30- 40 meet the challenge? over the past 30— 40 years, particularly with margaret thatcher in the uk, we have believed a very much in deregulation and market allowed to allocate resources efficiently. we are increasingly seen the rat shortfalls and there are certain areas where markets need help. —— there are. this is a massive trend that think is talk about and we did not have clear a nswers for is talk about and we did not have clear answers for it. automation creates jobs but they are low—wage and low productivity is one of the biggest problems the uk faces. it

may be that we need to look at more creative thinking, increasing minimal wages, robot takes it looks like we may possibly need innovative thinking and trying out some things, give it a go even if it is really dramatic. finally, the express at the end of december. ice and snow out there but it has been causing problems according to the express. deadly warning, ice chaos after snow hits britain. a bad situation. notjust the express, it is across the newspapers today and unsurprisingly that flurry of snow we had across london was dramatic elsewhere. the times is saying we are in for two more days of subzero temperatures. 50,000 homes are apparently without

power over the last few days and it is clearly a dramatic situation. travel has been disrupted... the interesting thing pointed out is the implication for people who are suffering health conditions. the nhs is saying it increases the risk of heart attacks and things like that. that is when logistics become serious. time to bring that to an end. sorry, you may have heard that buzzing. that was my phone. what are you doing?! leaving some of the stories behind the headlines and thank you for watching. thank you and goodbye. i should tell you that we have some breaking news

concerning the weather. this is from a spokesperson at stansted airport saying that due to adverse weather conditions flights were counselled. there are up to 300 passengers in the terminal waiting to rebook flights. passengers unable to return home are being looked after by airport staff. passengers due to travel are advised to check with their airline. and quick update for you there on the travel situation in concerning stansted. jim naughtie talks to the bestselling author sophie kinsella about her book my not so perfect life. sophie kinsella's new novel is called my my not so perfect life, which gives you a clue. it's about a woman in her 20s who leads an apparently glamorous life in london, although the truth is much more prosaic, and has to move back home to the country when she is sacked, to work for her father. but the life she finds there is not quite what she expected. sophie kinsella has written a string of worldwide bestsellers, including the confessions of a shopaholic series,

picked up by hollywood. and if you are wondering — well, she does not mind the term "chick—lit", but she much prefers what one book shop called her novels, "wit—lit". welcome. you are talking in the book, introducing us to a metropolitan life. it's not quite what it seems. do you think that that is the truth about the way that people live these days, particularly in london? i think that all of us are suckered into projecting the perfect life. i think that social media has not helped this tendency. which i think was always in us. you know, back in the day you would have your portrait painted, wouldn't you ? speak for yourself! you'd make sure you looked alluring...well, 100 years ago. but i think my forebears would have aimed to look as rich and prosperous

and happy and wonderful as they possibly could. then, the portrait would be hung on the wall and you could go about your everyday life. i think now what we do is constantly throw out portraits of ourselves through social media, and also through our professional demeanour, just this sort of image. then we look at other people. although we know that it is invented, we sort of believe it anyway. this book seems very much of the moment, in that this picture which is built up, say, on instagram, which really is a construction which is quite fake. she goes back and lives in a wee little one room place, although when she is out and about, she looks quite glamorous. this really is a bit of a problem for us, not for us all, but a problem of our time? i think it is. it is sort of accelerating. i mean, social media has exploded, certainly in my lifetime, from not existing to almost being a planet that we have discovered, and now we live on! we have colonised it and had to make

it work for us as humans and i think it brings out the best and the worst. i love the connection but this measuring and judging is not good. you write about women with particular feelings, notjust women, but particularly for young girls, teenage girls, and so on. this world that they are introduced to, you talk about measuring, testing, living up to expectations. whether it is how you look, your sexual experience, whatever — it is the sort of thing where, in your young life and my young life, didn't exist. absolutely didn't exist, you had your own teenage struggles. perhaps you would tell your diary about them, and maybe a close friend. you spent a lot of time on the phone with one person, whose voice you could hear, by the way. as humans, we respond to so many signals. voice, touch, eyes. and on social media, there is a barrier. there is a visual construct and this wretched "liking" which everyone becomes addicted to, and a validation that we have all got hooked on.

it is not good. where can it end? it can only lead to a kind of addictive reliance on it. we should not give the idea that the book is a meditation on contemporary society! it is not. it is a story. but that is the theme, really. when you get an idea like that, does it gnaw away at you until you've written the book? yeah, i think i go around the world with a sort of radar. whatever i see goes into my stories. so, when i see people shopping too much, that goes in. and when i see people projecting lives and feeling anxious because they are not living up to some sort of measure of success, that goes into a story. but what i try to do, as you say, i try to make people laugh,

whip over the pages, see what is coming next. it's not a treatise, not a thesis, the thesis is sort of there between the jokes. what do you think you have got that makes you a good storyteller? i think from what my readers say, they relate to my characters. they sort of see themselves in the characters, they see those flaws and foibles. they think, ah, i have done that. in everyday life? in everyday life. but then what i do is push it to the nth degree, whether it is getting into ridiculous situations. i love a bit of farce, silly situations, and quite intricate plots. i'm a real geeky plotter. but you start off with somebody that you relate to. so go with them through the story. it is the old story, isn't it, that if the reader doesn't care about the character, not necessarily total affection, but does not care in the sense that is not interested in... then, the thing is a dead duck? i completely agree. you can have an anti—heroine, but you need someone that is interesting. all of my sophie kinsella novels i have written in the first person. that makes them quite intimate. there is a connection. what is the advantage of writing in the first person?

i find an instant intimacy with the character. i know these characters so well, and i did used to write in the third person. there was a slight level of detachment. you are moving chess pieces around. now, it is like method acting. you are in one person's head? i live these plots, and actually my husband can tell when things are going badly for my character, they go badly for me! i weep, i laugh... you know, it is quite an emotionaljourney. and when you're in the throes of a story, once you have got the idea, you think that you are there as a character who has begun to form in your mind? you just go at it, hammer and tongs? i do, i do. i'm a real planner in terms of plot. i love a plot, i love structure. i spend quite a lot of time working things out, turning points and getting it all clear in my mind. also working out what i want to say, because you can have an idea for a story but you're not sure what you are trying to say about the world. 0nce i've got that, i'm impatient. i want to see how it turns out. what do you want to say about the world?

i think all of my books want to say, look at us, we are human! aren't we ridiculous? look at the pickles we get ourselves into... it is about absurdity? it really is. and, by the way, we are all like this, but never mind. let's notjudge ourselves. are you one of those writers who goes around either literally with a notebook in the pocket, where you scribble down things. or, at least a notebook in your head, and you spot somebody in a coffee shop or somewhere and you say, right, i've got her...? i do, and i think i do it all the time. i've got you, right now! well, good luck! i never have the right person for the right chapter. if i could go to a coffee shop and find the right character and put them in now, that would be very handy. it doesn't work like that? it never works. but you store them up, or store up a little facet of something you've heard, and it comes back to you later. do you think about your readers when you are doing this? you have a vast army

of readers out there, do you ever think about it and what they want? i connect with them, and when i meet them, interestingly it is the same wherever i go. they have a sort of human... what do they ask you, what kind of questions do they ask? they want to know what is happening next with my characters. i know that they love to laugh, but to be honest, i don't visualise them when i am writing. i think that would freak me out. so i write the book that would please me as a reader. what would i love to read? i love a plot, some comedy and something to think about. what about endings? have you thought of... you know, a really tragic ending? well, i sometimes think, you know what? i should do that sort of... because you haven't, have you? gut—wrenching. .. no, i haven't, i haven't done the gut—wrenching tragedy where you just think, "why?" as you turn the final page. so far i've not been ballsy enough to do it. maybe someday? bit of resolution. maybe one day. sophie kinsella, thank you very much. thank you. takeit

take it easy if you are out and about early this morning because things are likely to be quite slippery in places. frost and ice around after the wintry weather we saw on wednesday and with clear skies we have had across country for a good part of the night. still some wintry showers feeding into northern and western areas through the first pa rt and western areas through the first part of the morning. that exacerbates the risk of icy stretches. is also potential for freezing fog —— fog through the day the generally speaking the day ahead is looking dry and bright with plenty of crisp winter sunshine. still some wintry showers feeding in across the north of scotland but these tend to fade away as the day goes on. temperatures even further south will you get some sunshine, one degree in glasgow, two in dundee. for the northern ireland, any parts of fog could linger through to the afternoon and for england and wales a lot of sunshine with temperatures of three, four, five degrees at best. and then thick

cloud in the far south—west only cornwall through the afternoon with some outbreaks of patchy rain. that will not amount to very much to do that with the system will break apart as we go into the evening and that will then allow, under clear skies once again, some frost to form, particularly in the central and eastern areas. could be a cold night and and eastern areas. could be a cold nightand a and eastern areas. could be a cold night and a cold friday morning. however notice in wet weather beginning to swing in from the west. that will bring rain but potentially for a time that will bring rain but potentially fora time in that will bring rain but potentially for a time in northern ireland, wales and the midlands some snow. and through the day on friday parts of northern england and southern scotla nd of northern england and southern scotland could see snow even at low levels. we will keep you posted on that one. to the north of that weather system it remains chilly. down to the south hints of what is to come. into something milder in the far south—west. as we move into the far south—west. as we move into the weekend we will bring another frontal system in with more rain and again some snow especially over hills and the north. and then we get into the south—westerly wind. a mild wind direction, a blustery and

strong wind on saturday. areas of wet weather here and there but sunny brea ks wet weather here and there but sunny breaks in between. still on the chilly side across scotland but elsewhere further south pretty mild, double digits down towards the south. a mild theme continues on sunday with showery rain in places and plenty of dry weather as well. that's all for now. this is bbc world news. i'm sharanjit leyl. our top stories: in syria, the first evacuations begin from a rebel—held suburb near damascus. but there's no relief for the hundreds more trapped in ghouta. record snow falls on the us city of erie, burying homes and cars under deep drifts. you know, it is a little ridiculous but i keep pecking away at it. meanwhile in the uk, snow and ice cause widespread disruption to travel, on the roads and in the air. barack 0bama urges the responsible use of social media,

in his first interview since leaving office. he's been speaking to prince harry here on the bbc.